Foreign Policy

Private supranational organizations are agents of peace and prosperity. The Wellcome Trust, Oxfam, Coca-Cola, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, McDonalds, Google, Microsoft—all have furthered human progress in their own way. By contrast, supranational...

The French foreign minister said the Irish would be ungrateful if they voted against the Treaty of Nice. When the Irish responded by voting against it, the French president commented simply, “They will have to vote again.” Who do these French planners, these socialist...

Make not so foolish a bargain, as for a little loose money to give up desperately all you have; your liberties, your estates, your families . . . for every bucket of water thrown into your wells, they will pump out tuns. —John Trenchard. Cato’s Letter No. 69, Address...

The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil constitution are worth defending at all hazards: And it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors. They purchased them for us with toil...

Constitutional power inherently belongs to the people A … government … cannot have the right of altering itself. If it had, it would be arbitrary. It might make itself what it pleased and wherever such a right is set up, it shows there is no constitution. —Thomas...

The British embraced socialism after World War II, and year after year, election after election, they moved further towards the cesspit of totalitarianism. They nationalized their industries, indentured their doctors, persecuted business, and taxed and spent until...

Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. —The Declaration of Independence A nation’s sovereignty is derived from the individual sovereignty of its people. Thus, despotically-ruled nations such as China cannot...

It is not what a lawyer tells me I may do; but what humanity, reason, and justice tell me I ought to do. —Edmund Burke. Edmund Burke, speech on conciliation with the American Colonies, March 22, 1775. There is no such thing as international law. This is because a...

Pirates are a scourge of humanity who threaten, steal, rape, and murder on the high seas. In addition to the direct consequences of their actions, they also destroy the one thing that brings all humanity together in fraternity, commerce. The right of self-defense...

The moral duty to rescue those in danger There is a moral difference between charity and rescue. Charity is ethically non-obligatory: rescue is ethically mandatory. Rendering charity to someone, for example by paying for an orphan to be raised, is voluntary because no...

As we peel back the moral squalor of the socialist regimes in Eastern Europe, we discover the natural and physical squalor underneath. They exploited nature every bit as ruthlessly as they exploited the people. In their departure, they have left her choking amidst...

Industrial espionage is just as damaging to a country’s long-term national interests as military espionage. The essence of the problem is theft. Countries like China, which sponsor industrial espionage, are stealing the fruits of other nations’ efforts, leaving their...

There is nothing sets the character of a nation in a higher or lower light with others, than the faithfully fulfilling, or perfidiously breaking of treaties. —Thomas Paine. The American Crisis, May 31, 1782. Defense treaties It is not a case of the encirclement of...

Every man’s business must be done according to his own mind: and if this be true in particular persons, it is more plainly so in whole nations. —Algernon Sidney. Discourses Concerning Government, 1689. A country’s motivation is its own concern, but the righteousness...

Every individual is entitled to rule himself, and from this right is derived the right of self-government of groups of people through democratic political compacts. However, when one people rule another people, regardless of the nature of their own government—it is...

The economic success of the Western world is a product of its moral philosophy and practice. The economic results are better because the moral philosophy is superior. It is superior because it starts with the individual, with his uniqueness, his responsibility, and...

Poor Neville Chamberlain believed he could trust Hitler. He was wrong. But I don’t think I’m wrong about Stalin. —Winston Churchill. Remark to his cabinet ministers, February 23, 1945, quoted from the diary of Hugh Dalton. Churchill understood the threat posed by...

If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without blood shed; if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of...

Executive Orders 12036 (President Carter), 11905 (President Ford) and 12333 (President Reagan) prohibit United States intelligence agencies from sponsoring or carrying out assassinations. These are absolutely correct; a free people should never be ashamed of anything...

As to those monsters who, under the title of sovereigns, render themselves the scourges and horror of the human race, they are savage beasts, whom every brave man may justly exterminate from the face of the earth. —Emerich de Vattel. The Law of Nations, 1758....

Arbitrary power in a single person has made greater havoc in human nature, and thinned mankind more, than all the beasts of prey and all the plagues and earthquakes that ever were … . A bear, a lion, or a tiger, may now and then pick up single men in a wood, or … an...

We ask only for a process, a direction, a basic code of decency, not for an instant transformation … . While we must be cautious about forcing the pace of change, we must not hesitate to declare our ultimate objectives and to take concrete actions to move toward them....

An executive officer is appointed to execute the laws; it is therefore illegitimate for him to pretend to speak for the people of his country. Accordingly presidents, chancellors, prime ministers and other executive officers should avoid making foreign policy speeches...

Since men are naturally equal, and a perfect equality prevails in their rights and obligations, as equally proceeding from nature—Nations composed of men, and considered as so many free persons living together in a state of nature, are naturally equal, and inherit...

Diplomacy should be wholly transparent. There should be no back-room deals or secret arrangements with dictators. All diplomatic communications should be published on the Internet in real time, and national leaders and diplomats should never meet privately. AGAMEMNON:...

Realpolitik is a foreign policy based primarily on pragmatic considerations, rather than on moral principles. It should never be engaged in by a free country because a nation should always act according to the moral values of its citizens. Ambitious amoral politicians...

I … have … seen much of the miseries of war. I am, therefore, in my inmost soul, a man of peace. Yet would I not, for the sake of any peace, consent to sacrifice one jot of England’s honor. Our honor is inseparably combined with our general interest. Hitherto there...

Free trade spreads civilization The essence of capitalism’s foreign policy is free trade—i.e., the abolition of trade barriers, of protective tariffs, of special privileges—the opening of the world’s trade routes to free international exchange and competition among...

We should persistently seek to advance freedom, democracy and human rights across the world. The reasons why are, above all, practical. Democracies do not by and large make wars upon each other. Regimes which respect human rights at home are more likely to forswear...